When the war with Iran ends, as all wars do, it should be based on an agreement that addresses the broader regional confrontation with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its role in each conflict. This should be the last war.
The media is generally treating Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia as though they only concern Saudi Arabia and not as part of the regional war with Iran and the US. The larger picture is ignored and there is also an almost romantic fascination with a ragtag army in flip-flops challenging the mighty US.
The attacks should be seen as part of a larger strategy of the Iranian regime’s IRGC in a confrontation with the US and its interests in the region that has been ongoing for more than 47 years.
Part of the problem is that Iran plays the whole region as one chessboard with the aim of expelling the US and defeating its allies. Meanwhile, the US sees each component as a separate issue where, like poker hands, you win some and lose some and walk out cutting your losses at any time and with no overall aim.
Every regional war that the IRGC has triggered or participated in since the early 1980s has been aimed at US interests and at sabotaging regional peace efforts. Lebanon in 1983-84, the summer wars of 2006 in Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq, and those of Oct. 7, 2023, and its aftermath were part of that.
The war has made Iran weaker because it incurred direct costs. This can be an opportunity to reach a deal
Nadim Shehadi
The summer wars of 2006 in Gaza and Lebanon and the escalation in Iraq were connected and triggered by different IRGC proxies, but the US treated them as three separate conflicts. On June 25 that year, Gilad Shalit was abducted, at the very moment an agreement between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization was about to be signed. A bit later, on July 12, Hezbollah crossed the border, abducted two soldiers and started the summer war with Israel. A few weeks later, Iraq escalated to alarming levels, with both Iran and the Assad regime adding to the chaos. The result was panic in the US and the beginning of talk of defeat.
Oct. 7 was similar. It was a coordinated regional attack starting in Gaza with Hamas, then Lebanon with Hezbollah and then with Iraqi militias and the Houthis joining in. One of the aims of Oct. 7 was to provoke an equally violent Israeli reaction that would incite global outrage; another aim was to stall the Saudi-Israeli talks. Both Iranian objectives were successful but at a huge cost to the people of Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen — although, before February, not to Iran itself.
The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal followed the same pattern. The US treated it as a separate issue. Iran treated it as part of a regional strategy. It was an Iranian condition that the talks be limited to the nuclear question and the regional problems were left out. That gave Iran the opportunity to grow its militias without the US raising the issue, including its intervention in Syria.
The JCPOA was neither joint nor comprehensive. It was not joint because it left out the Gulf states and the other US allies in the region. It was not comprehensive because it left out Iran’s role in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. It should have included a regional action plan to deal with all the problems Iran is involved in.
Washington’s politics did not help. For years, Iran has been a partisan matter. It goes back and forth like a yo-yo. George W. Bush considered Iran to be a main part of the “Axis of Evil,” Barack Obama thought it had a legitimate claim to the region, Donald Trump killed Qassem Soleimani and tore up the JCPOA, and Joe Biden resumed engagement and deactivated some sanctions as an incentive while talks were ongoing. In the policy world, being pro-Iran too often turned into being critical of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states as a means of defending Tehran.
There is one positive to all this. For 47 years, Iran could attack the US through its proxies, both where it hurt most and with plausible deniability. It cost Iran very little. Its support for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and parts of Hamas helped sabotage Palestinian-Israeli peace. Its wars hurt Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Palestine far more than they hurt Iran. With so little to lose, Iran had no real need to make a serious deal — the real costs fell on the rest of the region.
That is no longer true. The attack on Iran in February this year was the first time the US looked at the problem as a regional one and went after the Revolutionary Guards themselves. The battle now includes Iranian soil and Tehran itself. The war has made Iran weaker because it incurred direct costs. This can be an opportunity to reach a comprehensive deal.
So, the next agreement must be what the last one was in name only. It has to be joint, which means it must include America’s allies in the region and their concerns. It has to be comprehensive, which means it deals with Iran’s role in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. And it has to have a plan of action, which means dismantling the armed groups Iran has used to unsettle the region.
The recent Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia are part of the regional war. Any negotiation with Iran must include its role with the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Iraqi militias, not just the nuclear issue.
The aim is a peaceful, stable, and prosperous region, once and for all.
Nadim Shehadi is an economist and political adviser.
X: @Confusezeus